Friday, November 7, 2014

Race #276 - Spooky Sprint 5k - Salisbury, NC - 10/26/14

In the second of two races on the weekend just before Halloween, I revisited the Spooky Sprint 5k, a fun 5k that starts at Catawba College in Salisbury and finishes on the school track. It's Rowan Rotary's big fundraising event of the year and they do an outstanding job with it. A lot of runners come out all dressed up for Halloween and there's a great kids fun run that's part of the festivities. It's one of the few races I know of in North Carolina that actually has Senior Grand Masters (ages 60+) awards in addition to Grand Masters (ages 50+) and Masters (40+) and most likely because of that there are a lot of older runners who participate. Last year and again this year I was fortunate to win Masters, so I'm sending out a big thank you to all the 40+ runners faster than me who didn't show up!

The temperatures in late October at 2:30 in the afternoon (race time) would normally be in the mid-60s, but this was a near-record-breaking day with the thermometer hitting 83 degrees. I love warm temperatures and would prefer 83 over 38 anytime, but I'm like anybody else in being slowed down some by the heat. I walked a short distance three or four times during the race, but I'm no stranger to walking in a race, and I was still satisfied with my final time.

As much as I enjoyed this race, there were a couple of things that were done better the previous year. First, the awards ceremony was a bit of a disaster. The PA system wasn't working so you couldn't hear what was being said. Things improved when the announcer just put down the microphone and used his outside voice, but by then it was too late. The second issue that was much better the previous year was that they had a photographer (or maybe more than one) who took photos last year and posted them for free on Facebook. For me and probably most other runners having free race photos is huge. Unfortunately they didn't do it this year so that was disappointing. Hopefully next year they'll get the awards ceremony straightened out and will consider having the free photos again.